The term “blaster” in the Star Wars universe describes a class of weapon that has existed since ancient times in their galaxy. In our world, blasters would be classified as “plasma weapons”, since blasters fire plasma bolts. Blaster bolts could also detonate on impact with their target, causing concussive damage similar to an explosive shell but without the fragmentation. They even come in many different colors for those who want to make their battles more stylish. Their only disadvantages are magnetic fields, deflector shields, and lightsabers wielded by magic space wizards.
All this just mean blasters in general are great weapons, and thus good for defending yourself against any would-be attackers who aren’t a Jedi or Sith. To that end, here are my top 5 blasters for when a random thug decides to make your life difficult.
5. E-Web
At 5th place, we have the chunktacular E-Web heavy repeating blaster!
The E-Web is a heavy crew-served weapon used primarily by the Galactic Empire, and I really do mean “heavy” in all definitions of that word. The weapon weighs 38 kg/84 lbs, and that may be with or without the generator, power cable, and tripod. Either way, this thing isn’t going anywhere fast if you’re only using your muscles to carry it. The fact that you need 2 people to carry it should tell you that even without knowing its weight.
Not only that, but it could even stun targets instead of killing them, making it a mini-E-11 and thus a very good self-defense weapon. The only reason why it’s in 2nd place is because the one in 1st place is just that much better.
1. DL-44
And now we have the shining crown of the self-defense world: the DL-44 heavy blaster pistol!
The DL-44 is just a good blaster pistol BlasTech made for the mass market. Because it was made for the mass market, virtually anyone could get it, and so it became very popular with criminals, smugglers, Rebels, and virtually anyone else in need of a rugged and powerful blaster; including a certain Han Solo. In fact, you can’t really think of anyone else when you see this weapon. Except for Greedo, but from the wrong end.
It’s easy to see why the DL-44 is a favorite of Han Solo. The pistol is bulky and is a little on the heavy side at 1.3 kg/2.9 lb, but its power more than makes up for it. As you can see in the picture above, the DL-44 is powerful enough to blow a hole in a humanoid easily big enough to fit your fist through. It’d be a pretty good pistol if that were the end of it, but during Han Solo’s flight from Mos Eisley, the DL-44 demonstrated vastly more power than that.
Each bolt from the DL-44 blew gigantic chunks out of the walls of the starport, with many of the chunks easily the size of a human head. That takes serious explosive power, easily on the scale of 40mm high explosive dual purpose grenades and maybe ever bigger. The 2 very different results indicates a dialable power output, which suggests that the user can dial it down to stun mode as well.
This thing is practically the poster child of a multipurpose “hand cannon“, and is why it’s at 1st place. What use do you have for anything else when you have an antitank gun that can fit in a pistol holster on your belt? And with a 50-round power cell capacity to boot?
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